mE

I am a 27 year old social worker and doctoral student working on improving my fitness. This blogs is a place for me to write about my experiences with fitness and fitness communities as a fat , feminist woman with disabilities. Sometimes things might go off the topic of fitness but that is the general theme.

Posts Tagged ‘Fat Acceptance’

This is just a post about me, and my health. I haven’t been particularly active recently between the plantar fasciitis and asthma.

So to catch folks up: turns out I have exercise induced asthma. Found this out after severe coughing following a krav maga class lasted several days rather than the several hours it used to. Went to my doctor, got diagnosed, prescribed an inhaler to use before exercise.

Inhaler helped but didn’t completely eliminate the coughing and trouble breathing. I then started having panic attacks when working out from panic that I wouldn’t be able to breath which just exacerbated the asthma.

Well, I finally got back to my PCP today about this. She prescribed a daily maintenance inhaler in addition to the as needed on I’ve been using. She also informed me that the as needed inhaler (albuterol) increases heart rate. Since I was (and am) supposed to use it before exercise, I think this as part of why I was having panic attacks (my fear + the physiological response to the albuterol). I feel a lot more relieved and in control knowing this.

Between this and improvements with my foot pain I’m hoping to get back to a higher activity level again.

So this post doesn’t directly address any big important topic, other than I think it’s good to recognize that health stuff happens, treatment is good, and if other folks are having trouble with a physical issue that is making it hard to exercise, it’s a good idea to see a doctor. Often it’s easy to put it all down to personal failing I think, especially breathing problems which we often attribute to “I’m just not in shape enough”. This is especially a problem for fat people because when our health problems are so often boiled down to “lose weight” regardless of what they are, it encourages people to not see doctors. Yet sometimes, medical intervention is necessary to allow people of any size to exercise safely, and there should be no shame in seeking that out.

There is a very common belief that it is important for people to see their bodies as part of themselves, not something separate from you, not just a vehicle you are in, but an intrinsic part of you.

I think there is a lot of value in this, specifically when talking about body image and harmful “diets” (or eating disorders masquerading as diets), the idea of one’s body as separate, and an object to fight against is part of the harmful mentality encourage by these.

I also know that for myself one of the best feelings I get from fitness is a deep sense of connection with my body, and an appreciation for what it does.

On the other hand though, I just read something about loving yourself even if you are unhealthy. My initial thought to that intro sentiment is that I see no contradiction there because I am not my body. My body can be ill and difficult, without me seeing those as inherent to who I am.

When it comes to being chronically ill, my feelings toward my body are very divergent from the mentality often encouraged in body positive spaces. I do often see my body as the enemy. I also do not love my body most of the time (in terms of function, not appearance). I also do feel like this depersonalization of my body is a mentally healthy approach to chronic illness at times. When I can’t do as much as I want, not seeing my body as intrinsic to who I am is part of recognizing “this is because my body is ill, this is not a reflection of me being a failure, or me being a weak person”.

Thus my limitations reflect back on my illness and by extension my body, not on me as a person.

Comic shows a man and woman getting married. In the first panel the priest asks “Do you promise to love him in sickness and in health?” The bride answers “Yes.” Second panel the priest asks “Do you promise to love him ’till death do you part?” The bride answers “Yes.” Third panel the priest asks “Do you promise to order your OWN fries if you want them, instead of saying you DON’T want fries, then requesting a ‘taste’ of his, and helping yourself to roughly half of them?” Fourth Panel the bride says, “Wha… who wrote these vows?!” The Groom says, “Just answer the question”.

I saw this the other day, shared on a website, and honestly didn’t think too much into it at the time. Yet it’s been stuck in my head a bit since then, bugging me a bit more over time.

The thing that bugs me about this comic strip is that it plays on a pretty common trope- women want something like fries but don’t order them instead eating a large portion of their (typically male) partner’s serving of that food.

If you want fries, just order your own fries, right?

Why is it apparently so common for women to not just order their own fries?

I feel pretty sure the issue is mostly related to pressure women feel to not be seen ordering too much food or the “wrong” kinds of food. That is the part that bugs me. Makes me mad actually. That we worry, that there is any cause to worry, about being judged if we did just order what we want.

Which to be clear- I order what I want when I eat out. Still, I can certainly relate to worrying about being judged for ordering what I want. Especially because of my size, but also certainly because I’m a woman. Because femininity is associated with daintiness and being small- and so we should be eating small, dainty portions right? Or better yet just not eating those foods at all because food is for some reason very gendered in our society! Burgers and fries? Those are guy foods. Women should order a salad. There is also this social image of women as dieters, where in it almost feels like an expectation that women be dieting, and trying to eat better (and less). Even if we don’t, how normal is it to preface such things with comments about how bad we are being for eating this or ordering that? It’s not the slightest big out of place to hear “I really should get the salad but that burger just looks so good!” To the point that it starts to feel like a social obligation to make it clear we know we aren’t supposed to be eating the burger and fries.

I certainly fall into this. Especially because I do tend to eat a lot in one sitting, particularly since I practice intermittent fasting. When I eat out at a restaurant, that’s often the only meal I eat that day, so yeah, it’s going to be big. It’s just common sense it will be bigger than someone for whom that is one of 3 (or more) meals they eat that day. Because of that I do find myself thinking “I really want to order this, but what are the people I’m with/the server going to think of me ordering that much?” I think more often than not these days I end up at “well fuck what they think, I’m ordering the food I want”, but it’s also pretty clear that this is something a lot of women, myself included, struggle with thinking. I also find myself making comments about it sometimes, like I need to acknowledge to someone that I know it’s a lot of food, or even apologize for that. I remember for instance going to a Coney Island restaurant with a friend who was visiting from out of state, who had never been to a Coney before. Looking at the menu, I really wanted a chili dog. I also really wanted a greek salad. And also chili cheese fries. So what did I order? All of the above. (Also ate all of the above plus half of a big dessert dish split with my friend after. And it was good.) I also remember making some comment to my friend essentially apologizing and saying that I was about to order a whole lot of food for myself. Which is of course completely ridiculous. I don’t need to apologize to my friend because I’m eating a lot of food. If I want to eat it, I don’t need to justify it, or apologize for it to someone else.

I suspect though that this is the underlying reason why it is, according to popular culture at least, so common for women to say they don’t want something like fries, and then eat part of their partners. This eliminates some judgement about what the woman orders for herself- not just from her partner, but the (often imagined) judgement from other random people, as well as from herself. “I’m bad for eating this” isn’t just something people say far too often, but also something far too common for women to feel. Yes, we want the fries, but we have years of programming telling us we are bad if we give in and order them or eat them. So you don’t order them, you just eat a few of your partner’s, which maybe ends up being more than a few because damn it you did actually really want the fries.

So, I absolutely agree that if you want fries, go ahead and order fries for yourself! But also, while we laugh about this phenomena of women who won’t order their own fries, why don’t we also consider what we are doing as a culture to make women feel bad for ordering fries?

(Also, I have some frozen fries in my freezer that I am definitely thinking of digging out and cooking later tonight thanks to this post! lol.)

So I’ve been thinking a bit about being inspiring to others, and then read a post on Fit is a Feminist Issue the other day about being inspiring and it made me want to post something here about it.

Awhile back someone commented on one of my running blogs saying:

I love hearing about your running. Each time I think ‘one day that will be me. One day I’ll be well enough to run’. It’s inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing.

And I was kind of shocked, in a happy way, reading that. First off, I started blogging my runs because I find it motivating in a way that’s hard to describe, and I wasn’t really sure anyone else would read them let alone enjoy reading them.

Also I never would have imagined it to be inspiring to anyone. It’s not like I’m running marathons or anything, I’m out there going slow and not very far.

While I can’t speak for the person who left that comment, I started thinking about it though, and realized that it makes sense in many ways to find more inspiration in seeing someone else through the process of something than just the end result, if that end result is something that you don’t feel like you could do. Just seeing someone else run a marathon would not for me be as inspiring as seeing someone else who struggles with running talk about the whole process of training for it, seeing the progress, set backs, frustrations- because that can make you think “Maybe I could do that.”

Also I looked up the commenter’s blog after reading that and it made sense to see that it was someone else who is struggling with chronic illness. It makes sense to find inspiration from someone else like us doing something we would like to do. I know for myself I also struggle with fitness being primarily dominated by people who are generally healthy- as most areas of life are. I don’t think it shouldn’t be of course, people with chronic conditions are a slight minority and even then the effects are vastly different based on condition and individual. I personally struggle though with remembering that I can’t expect my training to look just like someone else who is generally in good health. Our experiences will be different. So when I do meet other folks who lift or run and have similar health issues as me, it is really great to see other people like myself doing these things as well.

So that’s my own background and what I’d been thinking about this before Natalie’s post on Fit is a Feminist Issue. In her post she takes issue with being called inspiring, coming from a perspective in which it seems she is often called “inspiring” by people who are different than her in a key way because of the idea that people like her don’t normally do that type of thing. In her case, the main issue she brought up was body size. Fat people aren’t expected to be active and athletic, leading to the “inspiring” thought process of “if even she can do that, I must be able to as well”. Which is a very different kind of inspiration, because it’s based on seeing that person as less than yourself. If even this person who should be less athletic than me based on X characteristic can do this, surely someone like me can as well.

This is pretty common with both fat and disabled athletes. Many disability activists have also spoken out about “inspiration porn”. Stella Yound in her Tedx talk says these “inspirational” images of people with disabilities “objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people.” This gets to the heart of what I think is the difference between when inspiring someone is great, and when it’s kind of icky. Seeing someone who is like you, such as someone with a similar disability or another fat person, doing something that you didn’t think you could, or that you are often told you can’t do because of that characteristic, can certainly be inspiring and it’s why it’s great to see more representation. Seeing more fat athletes or athletes with disabilities is great when it comes to providing encouragement to other fat people and people with disabilities, who can feel empowered by that to be more involved in aspects of fitness they enjoy.

It becomes kind of gross and really rude though when it’s taken as “inspiring” to people unlike the person in question.

This is so often the case of how images of athletes with disabilities are used. I see all the time people sharing images or video of athletes with clearly visible disabilities- typically people either born without certain limbs, or who have had them amputated, and the message is clearly stated- if this person can do it, then so can you. So can you because you are better than this person already because you aren’t disabled. The intended audience who are meant to be inspired aren’t other people with disabilities who think “that person is like me!”, it’s people without disabilities. And the reason it should be inspiring to people without disabilities is predicated on the social belief that people with disabilities are less than able-bodied people.

So someone mentioned a website proteinpow.com online and I decided to check it out. It’s a website with a bunch of recipes using protein powder. Pretty cool. At the bottom on the home page they have some links to recipes of theirs with one titled “Are you beach body ready?” And I’m sad to admit that I was nervous clicking it- is this going to be a body positive piece or more advice on losing weight to look good at the beach?

Fat hate trolls like to act like they have an exclusive claim on fitness. And seeing them a bit too much on instagram recently, that mentality starts to seep into my brain, and I become weary of fitness spaces/websites.

The stupid thing is, this isn’t really my experience with fitness sites and people involved in fitness. Women especially who are very interested in fitness still understand the negative, impossible to win standards women are taught to hate ourselves if we fail to meet. Body positivity then is very much accepted and supported by many fit women.

NO ONE is attacking health and fitness. On the contrary, they’re seeking to reclaim the true meaning of what health and fitness actually means.

. . .

It’s a lie to think that fit bodies only look a certain way. How can they? When they’ve all been designed so differently? How can we – and more important – why SHOULD we all fit a singular mold?

I would argue that, either directly or indirectly, the reason we’re sold this lie is so that we feel unhappy with ourselves – unhappy enough to feel the need to buy weight loss supplements when we don’t need them. Unhappy enough to push beyond our breaking point when we exercise and lose sight of why we started on our fitness journey to begin with. Reminder: it wasn’t just for a six-pack – it was for our fitness, it was for our performance, and it was for our health.

. . .

That’s why I think it’s important to push body-accepting discourse. Because it’s only when we love our bodies that we treat them well. That we feed them well. That we exercise them well and use them to the best of their capacity. It’s out of love for our bodies – no matter how ‘fit’ or ‘unfit’ they may seem to someone else – that we treat them their best, fuel them as we should, and exercise them with gusto. And we use them as the tools that they are for living healthy, happy, and full-to-the-brim lives!
So we need to work together to underscore the fact that a ‘beach ready body’ or a ‘bikini body’ isn’t ONE KIND of body – let alone one that requires weight loss to be ‘ready’. You know what a a bikini body is? It’s ANY body. All someone needs to get a bikini body is a body. And a bikini.

It’s not perfect from the perspective of many size acceptance activists of course, but I’m ok with that. From a fitness focused perspective, I think it’s a pretty good article!

And it does remind me of some of the amusing things fat hate trolls thing they can tell about me from my body size. Like that I obviously have never even touched a barbell. That I wouldn’t use protein supplements or other supplements often used to help facilitate muscle growth and recovery (like creatine). This coming from the same folks though who think lifting = bodybuilding. Powerlifting? Olympic weightlifting? Strongman? What’s any of that? Obviously the only people who pick up weights are bodybuilders. Certainly makes me suspect they are not in any place to be judging other people’s knowledge regarding lifting heavy things.

It is funny to me both because it’s so not true to me and my life (obviously I enjoy lifting, and I have protein powder I use for shakes primarily but also other recipes (I love some peanut butter chocolate chip protein balls! Great homemade alternative to protein bars imo). I also take creatine. Aside from my personal experience though, it also amuses because fat women lifting is not some really unheard of thing. There are a lot of fat or otherwise just not thin or bodybuilder looking women who do powerlifting, olympic weightlifting, and strong(wo)man style lifting. This shouldn’t be news to anyone familiar with lifting.

So I’ve talked about this before on this blog, that some people have actually stated that they would be supportive of a fat person working out and they think that person should not be bullied or fat shamed for doing so…. unless they found at that that fat person was not attempting to lose weight, in which case they deserve to be bullied and ridiculed for working out. Which is just completely ridiculous and absurd on so many levels. Why the hell would it matter to anyone what the reason is that someone is working out? And it most certainly doesn’t change the fact that that is a person who deserves to be treated with basic dignity and respect, who has just as much right to that space to workout in as anyone else.

There is a recent story going around social media that relates to this: some asshole named Keath Hauhser, who runs “shark fitness training” took a photo of a woman in front of him at a baseball game in order to post to his “fitness training” company’s facebook mocking her for being fat with an accounting of how much she ate during the game according to him (apparently he spent the whole game watching her instead of the game), and then mocking her for entering what she ate into myfitnesspal at the end of the game. According to this “trainer” fat people should lose weight, counting calories is a common method for weight loss, but then fat people should be mocked for counting calories. Just like we should get off our fat asses and exercise, but deserve to be mocked for getting off our fat asses and exercising. No contradictions there!

Keath made a bunch of hateful and stupid comments that made no sense over several days on his facebook about this woman and other fat people, until the story had enough coverage that he finally wanted out of all the backlash and issued an “apology” which by that point certainly seems less a matter of “I’m sorry and realize what I did was wrong” as much as “can you all just leave me alone about this now?” Apparently people who take photos of strangers to mock them online have very thin skin themselves! Who’d have known….

I first heard about this on facebook when I saw a friend share a letter from the woman photographed, identified as B. The letter tells the story of a woman who had previously weighed over 400lbs and lost over 150lbs, who was excited to be at the game as it was the first time since losing weight she could fit in the stadium seat. The entire letter’s premise is that fat-shaming her is wrong because she has lost weight, rather than fat-shaming her is wrong because she is a human being and you don’t do that other people. That premise bothered me, but it is her story and her right to tell it from her perspective.

Only one problem…. it isn’t. The letter was written by a man named Tony Posnanski who used photos of a friends of his in crafting this story. Tony and his friend do share much in common with the story he told in terms of weight loss, but still the story is not that of the woman whose picture was taken, and those are not her words.

(fyi, I linked to the letter on Tony’s website, the anti-jared, however it was reposted on another website where I read it originally from facebook share, thus removing any connection to Tony in that format.)

Which makes the premise of the letter all the more troubling.

Keath secretly photographing a woman at a baseball so he could mock her body size and food choices on his company’s facebook page is absolutely disgusting and horrible thing to do. That is true is the woman photographed has lost weight, weighed the same for years, or recently gained weight. It is true whether she is trying to lose weight now or not. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is she is a person.That is all we need to know to know that photographing her to mock her body on social media is not an acceptable thing to do

[Image of troll dolls] Not these cute ones, but I’d rather use a photo of some cute dolls than anything more on topic.

I check out various hashtags on instagram from time to time though I don’t follow any religiously, but it was brought to my attention by someone that there were a bunch of trolls posting using various body positive hashtags and curiosity got the better of me and I checked them out. And sure enough the hashtags were overrun with trolls. Photos mocking fat people, photos of literal shit and vomit, and the usual jokes about fat people being lazy. All apparently from a subreddit called “fatpeoplehate”. Well, at least they are being honest about what they are about! No faux concern or attempts to call the hate anything else to make it sound more palatable. Their purpose is hating a group of people pure and simple. Their message is hate,end of story.

After that I kept checking back on the hashtags. They were still being overrun by these hateful messages from troll accounts that instagram keeps around despite the fact that they are very open about their sole intent being spreading hate, bullying, and harassment.

It really suck being reminded that there are people out there who even though they’ve never met you, straight up hate you because of some characteristic that has no impact on them. To be reminded that these people see you as less than human.

But despite that negativity I noticed a few things,

(in no real order)

All these hateful images and messages were coming from just a handful of accounts. They were overtaking the hashtags but not due to numbers, there were far more people using the hashtags as they were intended with the occasional real photo shared here and there.

The only reason these trolls were able to seem to dominate the hashtag despite being far outnumbered is because they posted constantly. What sad lives to spend so much time posting hate through a troll account.

The troll accounts were just that- no name of the person behind it, no photos of who they really are, none of the normal instagram photos normal accounts have- selfies, stuff they do, friends, family, nature, their city, whatever else. There is none of that because people who spend so much of their time online hating and harassing other people do not want actually want that hate, that bullying, associated with who they really are. At the end of the day, they know they are wrong and that their behavior is unacceptable. So they hide. My instagram is on the side of this blog filled with selfies and pictures of my boring everyday life. That’s because I am not ashamed of anything I say here or there. I don’t need to hide who is behind these words.

And at the end of the day, despite all that hate, these are my take home points from this. As disgusting as these trolls are, they are a small group of people. They do not represent they views of most people. They are a few sad, pathetic people hiding behind the anonymity of their computer screen, in fear of their real identity ever being outed, because they know most people would not condone their hate and bullying behaviors.

I just want to encourage others to remember this, and don’t let a small group of hateful people bring you down.

The whole thing is really, really worth reading. That said I also love this paragraph near the end:

What I’ve learned is: the story I got told about what it meant to have a fat body, that it must mean that I sat around all day eating deep-fried stuffed-crust pizza and watching TV—that story just wasn’t true. The story about how people who look like me hate to exercise just isn’t true. It’s so easy to let the media you see or the discourse you hear define who you are before you’ve even learned about yourself. And I bought into it for too long.

And the Successful Fitness App mentioned? Zombies, Run! I already loved this app and now there is so much more to love about it!

When we came to make Zombies, Run!, I deliberately put a line in the very first mission, when you, Runner Five, are just arriving at Abel Township, the tiny, shivering remnant of humanity left after the zombie apocalypse. I had one of the characters say: “If you can move above a slow shamble, we can use you.” Why? Because I am so sick and tired of the best and nicest exercise-based treats being reserved for people who are already in peak physical shape, and I’m sick of the notion that having fun while exercising is something you have to earn; that, until you look a certain way, moving ought to be boring and unpleasant if not outright painful. Your body is there right now. You did not have to earn a thing. It is a gift. You are a hero every time you step out of your front door to do some exercise.

I’ve heard that line before, but I never gave a whole lot of thought to it. But so much more love for the fact that this was purposeful to say running is running, even if you are slow! Especially since I run super slow and I’ve been playing zombies, run! before and thought “thank god there aren’t really zombies chasing me, because I’m not sure I’d really be successful in outrunning them for real”.

I do love this app though, not only is it just really fun to play while running, I’ve actually been meaning for awhile now to write about Zombies, Run! in terms of their representation of queer characters. I won’t say too much more on that now, because I still plan to write that post some day. So this is just one more in a long list of reasons to love the app.

And to sum it all up:

And, to be clear, there’s no moral component to exercise, no matter what the magazines might try to tell you. You’re not a better person for doing it or a worse person for not.

Ragen Chastain on her blog Dances with Fat recently had a post about coming out as fat.

I don’t feel the need to come out as fat or fat and happy personally. But I thought of this when thinking about the way I talk about being classified as “morbidly obese”. I talk about this and make sure to use this terminology not in the same way I do “fat”, I don’t want to reclaim it, but to put a face to the term.

I’m 5ft and last time I stepped on a scale somewhere around 225lbs giving me a BMI close to 44, with BMIs over 40 being classified as “morbidly obese”.

photo of myself for visual reference to what my weight looks like on me, for those who don’t already know.

One of my very early posts on this blog was actually about what my weight is (and yeah, I weigh even more now than when I posted that). I am publicly telling you all how much I weight because I don’t think it is something I should be ashamed of.

I’ve had a lot of people express shock at my weight and even more that I would be considered “morbidly obese”. So often we treat these numbers and classifications as so secretive and shameful and the result is most people don’t have a good mental image of what it does, or more accurately, can, look like. So people can obviously look at me and see that I’m fat, that is no shocker. But when we treat weight as something so secretive and something to even be lied about, people don’t end up with good visuals of what weights look like. I think this is even worse with bmi classifications. Especially when it comes to such negative terms like “morbidly obese”, it makes sense this isn’t something those who are technically classified as are quick to identify with, and a lot of people never bother to look at what all these classifications are to know if it fits them or not. So when people use these terms, they don’t always have a good idea of who it is they are talking about.

I talk about being classified as “morbidly obese” because this is a category most people treat as so extreme that of course people that fat deserve negative treatment. “It’s ok to be a little overweight, as long as you aren’t morbidly obese”, (in response to fatshaming) “it’s not like she’s morbidly obese!”- the overall implication is that “morbidly obese” people do deserve to be treated terribly. It’s important to me to “out” myself as THAT fat because of this. Because the next time someone who knows me wants to talk about how these things are only not ok when a person isn’t “mobidly obese”, they are saying that these things are acceptable when applied to people like me.

This isn’t to say it would be ok if the definition of “morbidly obese” was something I didn’t fall under. The point isn’t that the definition isn’t high enough up there. The point is no one deserves to be treated disrespectfully or bullied and that fat people, and even us “morbidly obese” folks are people like anyone else.

It’s about putting a face to the term, which can help to humanize the group. If you don’t know anyone personally who falls into x group, it’s easy to justify their poor treatment. Sure, there are a lot of people who will feel the same regardless of if they know someone in x group or not, but there are others for whom realizing that these people are some faceless other, but people they know and even care about, does make a difference.

Still I use “morbidly obese” in quotes because while I think it important that people understand when they use this term, they are using a term that is applied to me, it’s not one I accept or agree with. The term suggest that I weigh so much that my body weight is literally killing me (and I specifically say weight rather than fat here, since this is defined by BMI which is based on weight regardless of composition. Although I am fat and have plenty of fat on my body, BMI makes no statement as to my, or anyone else’s, body fat vs lean body mass.) According to many places I’ve found online being morbidly obese means that one’s obesity interferes with basic physical functions like breathing and walking! Which my obesity does not interfere with my basic physical functions. I do not have any of the so called “obesity related” illnesses that are mentioned with “morbid obesity” and it does not significantly impair my quality of life.

Particularly as a person with disabilities, I find all of this ridiculous. I know very much what it is like to have an illness that impairs my quality of life and ability to function, and it is nothing at all like being fat. (And there is absolutely no reason to think any of my illness are caused by being fat, since I’m sure there are plenty of folks who would claim that. I love how people are always so quick to say I must be ill because I’m fat without even knowing me or what my illnesses are.)

I want to talk about something that has been bothering me and that is the moralizing of eating. Not food (that is a different issue), but eating itself. This comes up in terms of the “why are you eating?” pieces of advice around identifying if you are hungry or bored or stressed or sad or eating for any reason other than physical hunger. And let me be clear that I have no problem with this topic or advice on understanding why we eat or crave certain things in and of itself. What bothers me is simply when this is treated as if we all have some moral imperative to only eat when physically hungry. That it is some sort of sin to eat for any other reason. And that, I do disagree with.

I am all about understanding our relationships with food, understanding why we eat, why we crave certain things, and just all around being better in touch with our bodies and minds. I talked before in my post on intuitive eating that I tend to crave sugary drinks if I get dehydrated and that is really just me being dehydrated and what I really need is water (though I could get this through either plain water or other drinks). Along a similar line I’m all about understanding why I am hungry or craving any particular thing at that time. I think the more in touch we are with our bodies and minds the messages they send us the better off we are.

I also believe very strongly in my life in prioritizing what my time, energy, and mental focus. And I’ve talked a lot here before about how fitness is not my top priority in life, and neither is eating or my body size or any of that.

This means, that sometimes what I’m eating or why I’m eating is not my priority at that time. And I for one am done feeling ashamed of that. I stress eat sometimes. And I know that it’s because of stress, but it also takes energy and some mental focus to go through the “I just want cookies because I’m stressed, I’m not actually hungry” and resist eating the cookies. No, not a lot of energy or mental focus, but when I’m rushing against a deadline to get a paper done, or proposal submitted on time, or anything else like that, my priority for all my energy and mental focus is on getting that done as well as possible on time. And that means, no, I’m not going to commit the mental resources to avoiding munching on some cookies while I do it. Because at the end of the day, not eating cookies is not that important to me. I don’t really give a damn if sometimes I eat cookies when I’m stressed. I do not think that is a moral failing, a character flaw, or some sort of sin.

And if eating some “junk food” when I’m stressed about getting something important done for a deadline is the reason I’m fat, I still don’t give a fuck. I’m still ok with the fact that I ate those cookies and I’m still ok with being fat.